Friday, December 24, 2010

Candlemaking

You can't call us butchers.
But you can call us bakers.

And you can also call us candlestick makers.

I love handmade gifts.
The time spent making them,
the love that goes into them...
is priceless.

This year the girls are making the gifts we give our
family & friends.
They made some beautiful artisan soap last week.
This week,
we worked on making
candles.

And let me tell you...
BOY, was it fun!!

Again, we did our research.
And decided to just buy a kit from Michaels.

The kit has everything you need to make
32 votive candles.

The wax comes in these big blocks.
So we had to bang them with a hammer and a chisel to make them smaller chunks.
The girls never did anything like that before.
(they are really girlie girls)
They were nervous at first,
but after a few whacks, I think they kind of enjoyed it ;-)
Then, we had to melt the smaller chunks of wax in a double boiler.


The kit came with a block of french vanilla fragrance that we had to shave pieces off and add to the melted wax.

Then, I poured the melted wax into the molds.
After five minutes of setting the wax, we all added the wicking.

As the wax hardens it shrinks.
A well develops around the wick.
We took a tooth pick and made holes around the wick to release any air pockets.
Then we poured in more wax.
{A different color}

Aren't they awesome???

The kit came with blocks of red, yellow and green dye.
For our second round of candles,
we experimented with mixing colors.
I also remembered this little bottle
of candle fragrance I bought as part of a school fundraiser a few years ago.
We added a few drops.
White tea & ginger
My FAVORITE fragrance!
(I wear the Bath+Bodyworks Body Spray White Tea & Ginger ALL THE TIME!--I LOVE it!)
These candles smell amazing!

~*~ DISCLAIMER: Neither Michaels, nor the Candlemaking Kit Co.  nor the Candlescents Co. sponsored this, nor gave free product or money for this post.
Although, I would gladly take any of the above and would LOVE to get some free products to review.~*~

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all
a very blessed Christmas!
My hope for you is peace and joy the whole year through!